John Stezaker | The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/john-stezaker
Latest news and features from theguardian.com, the world's leading liberal voiceen-gbGuardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. 2018Thu, 22 Feb 2018 07:09:21 GMT2018-02-22T07:09:21Zen-gbGuardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. 2018The Guardianhttps://assets.guim.co.uk/images/guardian-logo-rss.c45beb1bafa34b347ac333af2e6fe23f.pnghttps://www.theguardian.com
John Stezaker: Film Works review – an overwhelming onrush of imageshttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/apr/26/john-stezaker-film-works-review-de-la-warr-pavilion
<strong>De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea, East Sussex</strong><br />John Stezaker’s films, made of eye-boggling torrents of discontinuous still images, captivate in a rare show<p>In the darkened gallery, by the sea, is a still image that appears to be moving at top speed apparently without shifting or changing. It’s a startling experience. It’s a photograph of a racehorse, projected on a screen as a big as a billboard, which shivers and shakes as if the horse – or perhaps the image itself – was desperate to run free, to break out of this static world.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/apr/26/john-stezaker-film-works-review-de-la-warr-pavilion">Continue reading...</a>John StezakerArtArt and designCultureSun, 26 Apr 2015 06:00:06 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/apr/26/john-stezaker-film-works-review-de-la-warr-pavilionPhotograph: Courtesy the artist and the Approach, London/PRJohn Stezaker’s Horse (2012) uses near-identical pictures from many editions of a racehorse catalogue to create ‘an overwhelming onrush’ of images.
Photograph: Courtesy the artist and the Approach, LondonPhotograph: Courtesy the artist and the Approach, London/PRJohn Stezaker’s Horse (2012) uses near-identical pictures from many editions of a racehorse catalogue to create ‘an overwhelming onrush’ of images.
Photograph: Courtesy the artist and the Approach, LondonLaura Cumming2015-04-26T06:00:06ZJohn Stezaker: 'cutting a photograph can feel like cutting through flesh'https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/australia-culture-blog/2014/mar/27/john-stezaker-sydney-biennale
<p>The artist has made his disquieting collages in private for 40 years. Now they're exhibited in major galleries, winning prizes – and a highlight of the Sydney Biennale<br></p><p>“Collectors of cinema memorabilia have a name for anonymous actors who were photographed for publicity stills, but never actually made a film," says John Stezaker. “They call them 'virgins'. When I go to collectors' fairs, it's the virgins I'm after. There is a certain melancholy attached to the faces of actors that did not make it and to images that were destined to disappear. I'm very drawn to that.”</p><p> A large desk in the back room of Stezaker's house in north London is cluttered with photographs of “virgins”, some of which have been sliced in half diagonally or carefully cut around so that only a silhouette of the face remains. These black and white portraits of anonymous failed actors, found at fairs, flea markets and online, are one of the key sources of raw material for Stezaker's art. He collects photographs in order to deface them and, in the process, create something new and arresting.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/australia-culture-blog/2014/mar/27/john-stezaker-sydney-biennale">Continue reading...</a>John StezakerArt and designPhotographyThu, 27 Mar 2014 04:33:07 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/australia-culture-blog/2014/mar/27/john-stezaker-sydney-biennalePhotograph: Alex Delfanne/Whitechapel GalleryJohn Stezaker, Pair IV, 2007, Collage Photograph: Alex DelfannePhotograph: Alex Delfanne/Whitechapel GalleryJohn Stezaker, Pair IV, 2007, Collage Photograph: Alex DelfanneSean O'Hagan2014-03-27T04:33:07ZDeutsche Börse photography prize won by John Stezakerhttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/sep/03/deutsche-borse-prize-john-stezaker
Collagist who cuts up other people's pictures in the name of his art wins prestigious £30,000 award<p>John Stezaker, a surreal, funny and often disturbing collagist who unashamedly cuts up other people's pictures in the name of his art, won one of international photography's most prestigious prizes on Monday night.</p><p>He was named winner of the £30,000 Deutsche Börse prize at a ceremony in London. The British artist, subject of a retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery last year, may not be a photographer in the conventional sense – in that he does not point a camera that produces images – but he won with "great unanimity" among the judges, said Brett Rogers, director of the Photographers' Gallery.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/sep/03/deutsche-borse-prize-john-stezaker">Continue reading...</a>John StezakerPhotographyAwards and prizesArt and designCultureUK newsMon, 03 Sep 2012 20:53:43 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/sep/03/deutsche-borse-prize-john-stezakerPhotograph: John StezakerPair IV, 2007. Writing in the Guardian in July, Adrian Searle said: 'Stezaker has that great unteachable gift: an eye and a sensibility. Photograph: John StezakerPhotograph: John StezakerPair IV, 2007. Writing in the Guardian in July, Adrian Searle said: 'Stezaker has that great unteachable gift: an eye and a sensibility. Photograph: John StezakerMark Brown, arts correspondent2012-09-03T20:53:43ZWhy John Stezaker deserves his Deutsche Börse winhttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/sep/03/why-john-stezaker-deserves-win
John Stezaker may not be a photographer, but the quiet oddness of his work makes him a worthy winner of the £30,000 prize<p>Back in December 2011, when this year's Deutsche Börse photography prize shortlist was announced, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/dec/07/deutsche-borse-prize-photography-2012" title="">I wrote</a>: "The judges' verdict seldom chimes with my wishful thinking … but, for the record, my heart says (Rinko) Kawauchi, but my head says (Pieter) Hugo. As is often the case with the Deutsche Börse prize, I may well be shaking my head in bemusement when the winner is announced next year."</p><p>In July of this year, when the shortlist exhibition went up at the Photographers' Gallery, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/15/deutsche-borse-photography-prize-review" title="">I had revised my opinion</a>, concluding that John Stezaker "may yet become the the first winner of the Deutsche Börse photography prize never to have taken a photograph".</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/sep/03/why-john-stezaker-deserves-win">Continue reading...</a>John StezakerPhotographyAwards and prizesArt and designCultureMon, 03 Sep 2012 20:30:02 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/sep/03/why-john-stezaker-deserves-winPhotograph: Alex Delfanne/PRSpeaks of a long-lost world ... Betrayal (Film Portrait Collage) XVIII, 2012, by John Stezaker. Photograph: Alex DelfannePhotograph: Alex Delfanne/PRSpeaks of a long-lost world ... Betrayal (Film Portrait Collage) XVIII, 2012, by John Stezaker. Photograph: Alex DelfanneSean O'Hagan2012-09-03T20:30:02ZJohn Stezaker's photography – in pictureshttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/sep/03/john-stezaker-deutsche-borse-prize-pictures
Worcester-born photographer and artist John Stezaker has been awarded the £30,000 Deutsche Börse photography prize in a ceremony at the Photographers' Gallery in London. The award is given to a practitioner of any nationality for a significant contribution to the medium of photography, and Stezaker was selected for his surrealist collages using found photographs. He beat <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2012/jul/11/deutsche-borse-photography-prize-2012-in-pictures">Pieter Hugo, Rinko Kawauchi and Christopher Williams to win</a>. Here's a selection of Stezaker's images <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/sep/03/john-stezaker-deutsche-borse-prize-pictures">Continue reading...</a>Deutsche Börse photography prizeJohn StezakerPhotographyArt and designAwards and prizesCultureMon, 03 Sep 2012 20:30:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/sep/03/john-stezaker-deutsche-borse-prize-picturesPhotograph: Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, LondonMuse (Film Portrait Collage) XVIII, 2012
Collage, 27.7 x 22.8 cm
Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, London
Photograph: Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, LondonPhotograph: Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, LondonMuse (Film Portrait Collage) XVIII, 2012
Collage, 27.7 x 22.8 cm
Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, London
Photograph: Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, LondonGuardian Staff2012-09-03T20:30:00ZDeutsche Börse photography prize 2012 – reviewhttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/15/deutsche-borse-photography-prize-review
Photographers' Gallery, London<p>This year's <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/jul/11/deutsche-borse-photography-prize-2012-in-pictures?newsfeed=true" title="">Deutsche Börse photography prize</a> shortlist takes in documentary, fine art, found photography and intimate observation, but as I entered the exhibition what struck me most forcefully was the white space around the photographs. Compared to the newly redesigned gallery's opening show, where <a href="http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/" title="">Edward Burtynsky</a>'s epic landscapes seemed to overfill the two top floors, this small, deftly hung group show allows the work of the four nominees acres of room to breathe. It almost feels like a different gallery.</p><p><a href="http://www.pieterhugo.com/" title="">Pieter Hugo</a>, the young South African who made his name with his startling series <a href="http://www.pieterhugo.com/the-hyena-other-men/" title="">The Hyena Men</a>, is the only photographer here to print big and bold. The first image you see is the astonishing portrait <a href="http://www.yossimilo.com/artists/piet_hugo/" title=""><em>Yakubu Al Hasan, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana 2009</em></a>. It's huge: 1.726 x 1.726 metres, to be exact. Hasan stares into the camera, a tyre hanging from one shoulder, a ball of coiled electrical wires on his head. It's one of several big portraits from the series <a href="http://www.guardianbookshop.co.uk/BerteShopWeb/viewProduct.do?ISBN=9783791345208" title="">Permanent Error</a>, which focuses on the waste collectors who work amid the toxic smoke on the biggest dump for defunct computers in the world.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/15/deutsche-borse-photography-prize-review">Continue reading...</a>PhotographyJohn StezakerArt and designCultureSat, 14 Jul 2012 23:06:08 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/15/deutsche-borse-photography-prize-reviewPhotograph: Alex Delfanne/PRMisfit: Marriage (Film Portrait Collage) XLIV, 2010 by John Stezaker. Photograph: Alex DelfannePhotograph: Alex Delfanne/PRMisfit: Marriage (Film Portrait Collage) XLIV, 2010 by John Stezaker. Photograph: Alex DelfanneSean O'Hagan2012-07-14T23:06:08ZDeutsche Börse photography prize 2012 – in pictureshttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/jul/11/deutsche-borse-photography-prize-2012-in-pictures
Pieter Hugo, Rinko Kawauchi, John Stezaker and Christopher Williams are the four photographers shortlisted for this year's £30,000 Deutsche Börse photography prize. Their work goes on display at <a href="http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/deutsche-borse-photography-prize-2012">The Photographers' Gallery</a> from 13 July - 9 September 2012. View some of their images here<br /><br />• <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/jul/10/deutsche-borse-photography-prize-review">Read Adrian Searle's review</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/jul/11/deutsche-borse-photography-prize-2012-in-pictures">Continue reading...</a>Deutsche Börse photography prizePhotographyDeutsche BankArtAwards and prizesCultureArt and designJohn StezakerPieter HugoWed, 11 Jul 2012 09:38:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/jul/11/deutsche-borse-photography-prize-2012-in-picturesPhotograph: Alex Delfanne/Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, LondonShortlisted for the Deutsche Borse photography prize
John Stezaker
Muse (Film Portrait Collage) XVIII
2012
Collage, 27.7 x 22.8 cm
Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, London
Photograph: Alex Delfanne/Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, LondonPhotograph: Alex Delfanne/Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, LondonShortlisted for the Deutsche Borse photography prize
John Stezaker
Muse (Film Portrait Collage) XVIII
2012
Collage, 27.7 x 22.8 cm
Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, London
Photograph: Alex Delfanne/Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, LondonGuardian Staff2012-07-11T09:38:00ZWorlds apart: who has the best shot at winning the Deutsche Börse prize?https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/dec/07/deutsche-borse-prize-photography-2012
The 2012 photography prize has an intriguing shortlist of very different artists – Rinko Kawauchi, Pieter Hugo, John Stezaker and Christopher Williams. I know who my favourite is ...<p>The 2012 <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/dec/02/deutsche-borse-photography-prize-shortlist" title="">Deutsche Börse photography prize shortlist</a> is an intriguing one, not least because of the range of styles and subject matter broached by the four nominees. Interestingly, two of the photographers, Japan's <a href="http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/kawauchi.html" title="">Rinko Kawauchi</a> and South Africa's <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/jul/20/photography.southafrica" title="">Pieter Hugo</a>, are nominated for work presented in book form, while both of the photographers nominated for their exhibitions, Britain's <a href="http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/john_stezaker.htm" title="">John Stezaker</a> and <a href="http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/as-we-speak/" title="">Christopher Williams</a> from the US, are not photographers per se, but conceptual artists who use photography in their practice.</p><p>Stezaker, who had a retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery earlier this year, collects old photographs – movie stills, publicity shots, postcards, book and magazine illustrations – slices them in two, then splices them with other cut pictures to create something altogether new and often slightly disturbing. He is an artist of the uncanny who takes his cue from political mischief-makers like the situationists as much as from surrealists. </p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/dec/07/deutsche-borse-prize-photography-2012">Continue reading...</a>PhotographyArt and designAwards and prizesCultureJohn StezakerPieter HugoWed, 07 Dec 2011 14:31:50 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/dec/07/deutsche-borse-prize-photography-2012Photograph: Rinko Kawauchi/Deutsche Börse photography prize 2012Intimate shots ... detail of Rinko Kawauchi's Untitled, from Illuminance, 2009. Photograph: Rinko KawauchiPhotograph: Rinko Kawauchi/Deutsche Börse photography prize 2012Intimate shots ... detail of Rinko Kawauchi's Untitled, from Illuminance, 2009. Photograph: Rinko KawauchiSean O'Hagan2011-12-07T14:31:50ZDeutsche Börse photography prize 2012 shortlist is unveiledhttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/dec/02/deutsche-borse-photography-prize-shortlist
Pieter Hugo, Rinko Kawauchi, John Stezaker and Christopher Williams are in the frame for photography prize<p>The shortlist for the 16th annual <a href="http://deutsche-boerse.com/dbag/dispatch/en/kir/gdb_navigation/about_us/30_Art_Collection/25_photography_prize" title="">Deutsche Börse photography prize</a> has been announced, with images of the transcendent moments of everyday life from Japan up against apocalyptic scenes of a computer dump in Ghana.</p><p>The four photographers in contention for the £30,000 prize are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/nov/16/pieter-hugo-photographs-rwanda-genocide#" title="">Pieter Hugo</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/may/07/art1" title="">Rinko Kawauchi</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jan/29/john-stezaker-whitechapel-gallery" title="">John Stezaker</a> and <a href="http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/as-we-speak/" title="">Christopher Williams</a>. Stezaker, the only British name on the list, was nominated for his exhibition at London's Whitechapel gallery in January, which gathered together his unsettling montages of 50s film stills and postcards. "He nips and tucks," <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jan/30/john-stezaker-whitechapel-moving-portraits-review?intcmp=239" title="">wrote The Observer's Laura Cumming</a>, "one film star is blinded by the excision of a narrow strip across the eyes; another becomes bug-eyed by the doubling of this strip, which also gives the collage an optical shudder."</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/dec/02/deutsche-borse-photography-prize-shortlist">Continue reading...</a>PhotographyArt and designCultureAwards and prizesExhibitionsJohn StezakerPieter HugoFri, 02 Dec 2011 17:09:19 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/dec/02/deutsche-borse-photography-prize-shortlistPhotograph: Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, LondonDeutsche Börse contender ... John Stezaker's Marriage (Film Portrait Collage), XLIII, 2007. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, LondonPhotograph: Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, LondonDeutsche Börse contender ... John Stezaker's Marriage (Film Portrait Collage), XLIII, 2007. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, LondonAlex Needham2011-12-02T17:09:19ZJohn Stezaker; Moving Portraits – reviewhttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jan/30/john-stezaker-whitechapel-moving-portraits-review
Whitechapel Gallery, London; De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex<p>Two movie stars in evening dress lean in for the kiss. The air is scented, the music quivers and mounts. But just as their lips are about to meet, the moment is blocked by a quite different view – of a river at the bottom of a deep dark gorge, flowing away towards a distant light.</p><p>A sepia postcard has been glued to a 50s film still: romantic landscape, romantic movie. That is the work; the method is simple. But the alignment is so skilful that one is able to hold two (and more) opposing perceptions at once: the lovers about to kiss, evident though their profiles are occluded; the prospect of passion welling up in the darkness; but also the exact opposite: two cliff-faces opposed, blocked, never to meet, with no release. Look into the image and it deepens; look, and you see through it to another side.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jan/30/john-stezaker-whitechapel-moving-portraits-review">Continue reading...</a>John StezakerArtArt and designExhibitionsCultureWhitechapel GallerySam Taylor-JohnsonGilbert & GeorgeSun, 30 Jan 2011 00:04:06 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jan/30/john-stezaker-whitechapel-moving-portraits-reviewPhotograph: PRJohn Stezaker Mask XXXVI, 2007, at the Whitechapel gallery.Photograph: PRJohn Stezaker Mask XXXVI, 2007, at the Whitechapel gallery.Laura Cumming2011-01-30T00:04:06ZJohn Stezaker exhibition - in pictureshttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2011/jan/30/john-stezaker-in-pictures
John Stezaker has been pondering visual incongruity, inverting, rotating, slicing and splicing pairs of old images to create new works of art<br /><br />John Stezaker is at the <a href="http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/john-stezaker">Whitechapel Galley</a> until 18 March 2011 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2011/jan/30/john-stezaker-in-pictures">Continue reading...</a>John StezakerArt and designPhotographySun, 30 Jan 2011 00:04:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2011/jan/30/john-stezaker-in-picturesPhotograph: John Stezaker<em>Love XI</em>, 2006 Photograph: John StezakerPhotograph: John Stezaker<em>Love XI</em>, 2006 Photograph: John StezakerGuardian Staff2011-01-30T00:04:00ZBrian Dillon on John Stezaker at the Whitechapel Galleryhttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jan/29/john-stezaker-whitechapel-gallery
John Stezaker's collages using black-and-white film photos and old postcards are nostalgic but also uncanny and absurd. As a career-spanning exhibition of his work opens at the Whitechapel Gallery, Brian Dillon pays tribute to a sly romantic<p>The English artist John Stezaker, whose uncanny collages are the subject of a career-spanning exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, tells a revelatory tale about the origins of his luminous art. Stezaker was born in Worcester in 1949; when he was 13 his family moved to London, and around this time his parents supplanted their crackling old snapshot albums with a new slide projector. The teenager was fascinated by the apparatus, and especially by the single demonstration slide that came with it: a wide-angle photograph of two men overlooking the Thames, with the Palace of Westminster and a lurid sunset behind them. Stezaker swiftly grasped that the projected image might be used to make art, thus obviating the tedium of freehand drawing. But when he took the machine&nbsp;to his bedroom, he found all he could squeeze on to a sheet of paper was a corner of the picture: Big&nbsp;Ben, a&nbsp;few&nbsp;turrets and a stretch of red sky. He tried painting over it in his best approximation of an "expressionist-psychedelic" style, but when he turned off the projector the result was&nbsp;"horrific".</p><p>In light of the artist's subsequent romance with the found photograph, this anecdote is almost too apt to be true. By the time he enrolled at the Slade in the late 60s, his main influences were Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke: painters whose use of photographs overlapped with and trumped, in expressive terms, the pop art of a few years earlier. But Stezaker was a student too at a time when a wholesale critique of the pop-cultural image was being launched by such thinkers as Guy Debord; the Situtationists' scurrilous repurposing of media imagery became an exemplary strategy for him, alongside his abiding, and then unfashionable, interest in surrealism. (He recalls being shown Max Ernst's <em>Une semaine de bonté, </em>based on the illustrations to earlier novels, by William Coldstream on his first day at the Slade.) Schooled also on the recently translated writings of Walter Benjamin, for whom the conjunction of photograph and caption had altered forever how we looked at images, Stezaker began making work with text and pictures, intent on exposing the mystique of the visual.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jan/29/john-stezaker-whitechapel-gallery">Continue reading...</a>Art and designCultureWhitechapel GalleryJohn StezakerSusan HillerPostcardsSat, 29 Jan 2011 00:06:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jan/29/john-stezaker-whitechapel-galleryPhotograph: Courtesy of the artist and the Approach, LondonDetail from <em>Marriage (Film Portrait Collage) LXI</em>, 2007, by John Stezaker. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist and the Approach, LondonPhotograph: Courtesy of the artist and the Approach, LondonDetail from <em>Marriage (Film Portrait Collage) LXI</em>, 2007, by John Stezaker. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist and the Approach, LondonBrian Dillon2011-01-29T00:06:00ZArtist of the week: John Stezaker | Skye Sherwinhttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/jan/28/artist-of-week-john-stezaker
With his eye for old-fashioned collage – and his mean hand with a scalpel – Stezaker gives new life to images from our past<p>With a few deft incisions with his scalpel, John Stezaker reveals what is lurking beyond the glossy surface of postcards and publicity stills. Sometimes one picture is simply positioned over the centre of another, but in a series such as Marriages (2006), men and women are forcibly yoked together with a swift, decisive incision down the middle. In Bridges, Stezaker's ongoing series started in the 1980s, buildings are chopped and reconfigured. Elsewhere the silhouette of a figure is cut out; its ghost-like absence filled in by more landscape or someone else's body. The technique is stunningly straightforward, the effect profound. As strong-jawed men are spliced with B-movie glamour pusses, bodily forms with architectural ones, painstakingly posed promo material becomes unruly, disorientating and freakish.</p><p>Stezaker soaked up a variety of influences while studying at London's Slade School of Fine Art in the 1960s. His teachers included Ernst Gombrich, an iconic art historian and Richard Wollheim, the Freudian philosopher. During this time, in France, the Situationist group of artists were arguing that reality had been replaced by the endless flow of images in the capitalist mass media. It was an idea Steazker took to heart, using the most straightforward kind of cut-and-paste to question the meaning of images.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/jan/28/artist-of-week-john-stezaker">Continue reading...</a>ModernismArtArt and designCultureJohn StezakerThu, 28 Jan 2010 11:48:58 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/jan/28/artist-of-week-john-stezakerPhotograph: PRCut-and-paste ... Untitled: For Angus - Film Still Collage I (2009), by John Stezaker. Image courtesy The Approach, LondonPhotograph: PRCut-and-paste ... Untitled: For Angus - Film Still Collage I (2009), by John Stezaker. Image courtesy The Approach, LondonSkye Sherwin2010-01-28T11:48:58ZExhibitionist: The best art shows to see this weekhttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/jan/23/exhibitionist-art-shows
The Photographers' Gallery kick-starts life in its new home with a Katy Grannan exhibition and John Stezaker and William Horner strike sparks off each other at the Russian Club Gallery<p>This week heralds the dawn of a new era – a new way of life. Naturally I'm talking about the <a href="http://www.photonet.org.uk/index.php?pxid=948" title="">Photographers' Gallery</a> in London, which has just moved to bigger premises on Soho's Ramillies Street. In the spirit of some other changes that have happened in the past week, why not visit their inaugural exhibition: Katy Grannan – The Westerns. Grannan's large, pale photographs are portraits of three transsexuals living on the West coast of America, attempting to find new ways of living (which seems to involve a lot of dressing-up). Grannan's camera is sympathetic, but also unforgiving, capturing the heavy, badly applied makeup on these deeply wrinkled faces. Several images are shot on an empty seashore, the sun-bleached landscape creating the impression that the characters here are pioneers in their own personal wild west.</p><p>Another new place to go: the <a href="http://www.therussianclubgallery.com/" title="">Russian Club Gallery</a> on Kingsland Road, east London. This gallery, which opened at the end of last year, is keen on pairing two artists and watching the sparks fly. Their latest combination - John Stezaker and William Horner – have the right chemistry. The theme that the artists chose to work on is "turning". Horner's sculptures look like objects frozen in a moment of change - splitting and cracking - and Stezaker's twisting of appropriated images aligns the act of physically turning with the idea of transformation. One portrait of a woman rotated 90 degrees clockwise makes her look as if she's dead and lying in her coffin.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/jan/23/exhibitionist-art-shows">Continue reading...</a>ExhibitionsArtArt and designCultureJohn StezakerFri, 23 Jan 2009 16:55:07 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/jan/23/exhibitionist-art-showsPhotograph: Katy Grannan/The Photographers' GalleryNicole, Crissy Field Parking Lot (II), 2006 by Katy Grannan. Photograph: Katy Grannan/The Photographers' GalleryPhotograph: Katy Grannan/The Photographers' GalleryNicole, Crissy Field Parking Lot (II), 2006 by Katy Grannan. Photograph: Katy Grannan/The Photographers' GalleryLaura McLean-Ferris2009-01-23T16:55:07Z